Full credit to innovations in other sports

(Two cricket fanatics with their views on world cricket from a Dunedin sofa)

"Mate, I think it is very important in this professional market-driven age that we stretch our vision beyond our sport to encompass some of the wonderful things being achieved in other sports, to help us make our own sport better."

"I agree entirely. Like rugby has copied the players-strung-out-in-a-long-line defensive patterns of league?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Rugby is a much more thrilling game now with players battering away fruitlessly for 80 minutes hoping for a hole to appear. Remember how boring it used to be when a backline swarmed across the field like a forest fire, players scything through open spaces and running 60 yards to score? But enough praise for modern rugby. I'm talking here about the Slope System."

"The what?"

"The Slope System. Golf, cobber, golf. This is the handicapping system recently adopted here in New Zealand which brings your handicap into line with all the different courses. You got down to an 8 on a par 60 course and you had all sorts of difficulty at The Grange, believe me. But not any longer, the playing field has been levelled."

"You've lost me. Where are you taking this?"

"Mate, I'm taking this to the arena of international test cricket. Remember back in the 70s when Carisbrook was so lush you couldn't hit boundaries? When a 40 at Carisbrook was worth a hundred at Pukekura Park?"

"I remember that well. Before they dug up the outfield and found all that stuff."

"Goalposts, small Japanese cars, three students - our sofa was dug up out of that Carisbrook outfield!"

"That it was."

"They used to call those 70s Otago sides block-sloggers - the Blairs, Lees, Cairns, McCullum - but these were people selected to hit over the lush mate, these were players selected on very sound logic."

"Absolutely."

"Well I was watching that Second Test in South Africa on the telly, and I reckon if the Slope System was in operation, Matt Sinclair's 150 would have been adjusted to better Brian Lara's record test score of 375."

"You mean that dreadful f....... brass band?"

"I mean that dreadful f...... brass band, yes. I turned the sound down and I could still hear it. A man who could score 150 in that kind of cacophony is a man I want in my side forever."

"All of which makes it hard to understand why the New Zealand selectors don't want Sinclair in their one-day team."

"That is a strange one, yes. But the band, mate, it must not be allowed. Poisoning the All Blacks before the World Cup final in 1995 was marginal when it comes to acceptable behaviour in the cauldron of international sport. But I think bringing in a brass band is pushing the envelope just a little bit too far. Call me old-fashioned, but I think they've crossed the line." "It does show these South Africans will stop at nothing though - credit to them for competing hard, I say, I like a hard competitor, me. Is Nash fit yet?"